Geochemical characterization of oceanic basalts using Artificial Neural Network

The geochemical discriminate diagrams help to distinguish the volcanics recovered from different tectonic settings but these diagrams tend to group the ocean floor basalts (OFB) under one class i.e., as mid-oceanic ridge basalts (MORB). Hence, a method is specifically needed to identify the OFB as normal (N-MORB), enriched (E-MORB) and ocean island basalts (OIB)

A Systematic Review of African Studies on Intimate Partner Violence against Pregnant Women: Prevalence and Risk Factors

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is very high in Africa. However, information obtained from the increasing number of African studies on IPV among pregnant women has not been scientifically analyzed. This paper presents a systematic review summing up the evidence from African studies on IPV prevalence and risk factors among pregnant women. Methods: A key-word defined search of various electronic databases, specific journals and reference lists on IPV prevalence and risk factors during pregnancy resulted in 19 peer-reviewed journal articles which matched our inclusion criteria. Quantitative articles about pregnant women from Africa published in English between 2000 and 2010 were reviewed. At least two reviewers assessed each paper for quality and content. We conducted meta-analysis of prevalence data and reported odds ratios of risk factors. Results: The prevalence of IPV during pregnancy ranges from 2% to 57% (n = 13 studies) with meta-analysis yielding an overall prevalence of 15.23% (95% CI: 14.38 to 16.08%). After adjustment for known confounders, five studies retained significant associations between HIV and IPV during pregnancy (OR1.48-3.10). Five studies demonstrated strong evidence that a history of violence is significantly associated with IPV in pregnancy and alcohol abuse by a partner also increases a woman's chances of being abused during pregnancy (OR 2.89-11.60). Other risk factors include risky sexual behaviours, low socioeconomic status and young age. Conclusion: The prevalence of IPV among pregnant women in Africa is one of the highest reported globally. The major risk factors included HIV infection, history of violence and alcohol and drug use. This evidence points to the importance of further research to both better understand IPV during pregnancy and feed into interventions in reproductive health services to prevent and minimize the impact of such violence

Developing an emotional coping skills workbook for inpatient psychiatric settings: a focus group investigation

Background: Evidence suggests an unmet need for provision of psychological interventions in inpatient psychiatric settings. However, inpatient wards can present a challenging environment in which to implement interventions. The authors developed the Emotional Coping Skills workbook, a psychosocial intervention designed to overcome these challenges and provide inpatients with an opportunity for psychologically-informed therapeutic engagement. The workbook includes information and exercises to empower inpatients to understand their emotions and learn to cope with their distress. Methods: A qualitative study using thematic analysis was undertaken in two UK inpatient psychiatric hospitals to explore staff’s views about whether and how the workbook could be implemented, and on barriers to its use. Thirty-five nursing and occupational therapy staff members participated in four focus groups, and a further two psychologists in semi-structured interviews. Results: Staff identified key barriers to successful implementation of the workbook. These were firstly, the difficulty in finding time and space for therapeutic work in the stressful ward environment. Secondly, staff identified a culture of emotional neglect whereby neither staff nor inpatients felt able to talk about emotions, and patients’ physical needs and medication were prioritised. Thirdly, staff discussed how psychotic symptoms and emotional distress could limit patients’ ability to engage with the workbook material. Staff suggested ways in which the feasibility of using the workbook could be enhanced. Firstly, they discussed the importance of encouraging staff to value psychological approaches and to view the workbook as a resource to help them manage their existing tasks. Secondly, they emphasised the value of staff drawing on their expertise to deliver the workbook flexibly in different formats and settings, depending on each patient’s particular presentation. Thirdly, they advocated empowering staff to decide the timing of intervention delivery in the context of each inpatient’s fluctuations in distress and progress towards recovery. Conclusions: The study has highlighted key principles for flexible and well-integrated intervention delivery; these principles will be helpful for enhancing the feasibility of any nurse-delivered psychological intervention in inpatient settings

Performance of Proximity Loggers in Recording Intra- and Inter-Species Interactions: A Laboratory and Field-Based Validation Study

Knowledge of the way in which animals interact through social networks can help to address questions surrounding the ecological and evolutionary consequences of social organisation, and to understand and manage the spread of infectious diseases. Automated proximity loggers are increasingly being used to record interactions between animals, but the accuracy and reliability of the collected data remain largely un-assessed. Here we use laboratory and observational field data to assess the performance of these devices fitted to a herd of 32 beef cattle (Bos taurus) and nine groups of badgers (Meles meles, n  = 77) living in the surrounding woods. The distances at which loggers detected each other were found to decrease over time, potentially related to diminishing battery power that may be a function of temperature. Loggers were highly accurate in recording the identification of contacted conspecifics, but less reliable at determining contact duration. There was a tendency for extended interactions to be recorded as a series of shorter contacts. We show how data can be manipulated to correct this discrepancy and accurately reflect observed interaction patterns by combining records between any two loggers that occur within a 1 to 2 minute amalgamation window, and then removing any remaining 1 second records. We make universally applicable recommendations for the effective use of proximity loggers, to improve the validity of data arising from future studies

The Co-Regulation of Emotions Between Mothers and their Children with Autism

Thirty-four toddlers with autism and their mothers participated in an early intervention targeting joint engagement. Across the 24 intervention sessions, any significant distress episode in the child was coded for emotion regulation outcomes including child negativity, child emotion self-regulation, and mother emotion co-regulation. Results revealed that emotion regulation strategies by both mother and child were employed during distress episodes. An effect of intervention was found such that children decreased their expression of negativity across the intervention and mothers increased their emotional and motivational scaffolding. The results of this study indicate a positive effect of an intervention targeting joint engagement on emotion co-regulation outcomes

An Integrated Model of Multiple-Condition ChIP-Seq Data Reveals Predeterminants of Cdx2 Binding

Regulatory proteins can bind to different sets of genomic targets in various cell types or conditions. To reliably characterize such condition-specific regulatory binding we introduce MultiGPS, an integrated machine learning approach for the analysis of multiple related ChIP-seq experiments. MultiGPS is based on a generalized Expectation Maximization framework that shares information across multiple experiments for binding event discovery. We demonstrate that our framework enables the simultaneous modeling of sparse condition-specific binding changes, sequence dependence, and replicate-specific noise sources. MultiGPS encourages consistency in reported binding event locations across multiple-condition ChIP-seq datasets and provides accurate estimation of ChIP enrichment levels at each event. MultiGPS's multi-experiment modeling approach thus provides a reliable platform for detecting differential binding enrichment across experimental conditions. We demonstrate the advantages of MultiGPS with an analysis of Cdx2 binding in three distinct developmental contexts. By accurately characterizing condition-specific Cdx2 binding, MultiGPS enables novel insight into the mechanistic basis of Cdx2 site selectivity. Specifically, the condition-specific Cdx2 sites characterized by MultiGPS are highly associated with pre-existing genomic context, suggesting that such sites are pre-determined by cell-specific regulatory architecture. However, MultiGPS-defined condition-independent sites are not predicted by pre-existing regulatory signals, suggesting that Cdx2 can bind to a subset of locations regardless of genomic environment. A summary of this paper appears in the proceedings of the RECOMB 2014 conference, April 2–5.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant 0645960)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (grant P01 NS055923)Pennsylvania State University. Center for Eukaryotic Gene Regulatio

The trans-contextual model: Perceived learning and performance motivational climates as analogues of perceived autonomy support

The trans-contextual model of motivation (TCM) proposes that perceived autonomy support in physical education (PE) predicts autonomous motivation within this context, which, in turn, is related to autonomous motivation and physical activity in leisure-time. According to achievement goal theory perceptions of learning and performance, motivational climate in PE can also affect autonomous motivation in PE. The purpose of the present study was to examine the influence of an integrated approach of perceptions of motivational climate in PE by incorporating aspects of perceptions of motivational climate from achievement goal frameworks on autonomous motivation in PE within the TCM. High school students (N = 274) completed self-report measures of perceived autonomy support, perceived learning, and performance motivational climate and autonomous motivation in PE. Follow-up measures of autonomous motivation in a leisure-time context were taken along with measures of attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and intentions from the theory of planned behaviour 1 week later. Self-reported physical activity behaviour was measured 5 weeks later. The results of the path analyses indicated that perceived learning climate was the strongest predictor of autonomous motivation in PE and leisure-time contexts and mediated the effect of perceived autonomy support on autonomous motivation in PE. Perceived performance climate showed no significant effect on autonomous motivation in PE and leisure-time. Results also confirmed the premises of TCM regarding the effect of autonomous motivation in leisure-time on leisure-time physical activity and the mediating role of the planned behaviour theory variables

Natural selection on cork oak: allele frequency reveals divergent selection in cork oak populations along a temperature cline

A recent study of population divergence at neutral markers and adaptive traits in cork oak has observed an association between genetic distances at locus QpZAG46 and genetic distances for leaf size and growth. In that study it was proposed that certain loci could be linked to genes encoding for adaptive traits in cork oak and, thus, could be used in adaptation studies. In order to investigate this hypothesis, here we (1) looked for associations between molecular markers and a set of adaptive traits in cork oak, and (2) explored the effects of the climate on among-population patterns in adaptive traits and molecular markers. For this purpose, we chose 9-year-old plants originating from thirteen populations spanning a broad range of climatic conditions. Plants established in a common garden site were genotyped at six nuclear microsatellites and phenotypically characterized for six functional traits potentially related to plant performance. Our results supported the proposed linkage between locus QpZAG46 and genes encoding for leaf size and growth. Temperature caused adaptive population divergence in leaf size and growth, which was expressed as differences in the frequencies of the alleles at locus QpZAG46

Teasing apart the heterogeneity of autism: Same behavior, different brains in toddlers with fragile X syndrome and autism

To examine brain volumes in substructures associated with the behavioral features of children with FXS compared to children with idiopathic autism and controls. A cross-sectional study of brain substructures was conducted at the first time-point as part of an ongoing longitudinal MRI study of brain development in FXS. The study included 52 boys between 18–42 months of age with FXS and 118 comparison children (boys with autism-non FXS, developmental-delay, and typical development). Children with FXS and autistic disorder had substantially enlarged caudate volume and smaller amygdala volume; whereas those children with autistic disorder without FXS (i.e., idiopathic autism) had only modest enlargement in their caudate nucleus volumes but more robust enlargement of their amygdala volumes. Although we observed this double dissociation among selected brain volumes, no significant differences in severity of autistic behavior between these groups were observed. This study offers a unique examination of early brain development in two disorders, FXS and idiopathic autism, with overlapping behavioral features, but two distinct patterns of brain morphology. We observed that despite almost a third of our FXS sample meeting criteria for autism, the profile of brain volume differences for children with FXS and autism differed from those with idiopathic autism. These findings underscore the importance of addressing heterogeneity in studies of autistic behavior